Second world war
Two books that made me forget everything else
Gstaad I’ve been hitting the books rather hard lately, the ritzy-glitzy crowd having gone the way of natural snow. There’s…
A soldier’s legacy: how a baby’s cry saved a family
It was early evening on Sunday 6 August 1944. The Allies’ bloody struggle to liberate Normandy from the Nazis had…
A solid costume drama but Dame Helen has been miscast: Catherine the Great reviewed
It’s possibly not a great sign of a Britain at ease with itself that the historical character most likely to…
Enjoyably contrived: BBC1’s Baptiste reviewed
What’s the best way to start a six-part thriller? The answer, it seems, is to have a bloke of a…
Like getting Banksy to repaint the Sistine Chapel: Sky Atlantic’s Das Boot reviewed
‘I know, let’s repaint the Sistine Chapel. But this time we’ll get it done by Banksy.’ Perhaps this wasn’t the…
The man who never cried
It was odd listening to Jim Al-Khalili being interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning rather than the other way…
Intelligent, unfussy, literate – the West End needs more plays like this: Switzerland reviewed
I know nothing about Patricia Highsmith. The acclaimed American author wrote the kind of Sunday-night crime thrillers that put me…
France’s second world war shame
The monument to this French village’s war dead is a plain white stone block with the head of a grizzled…
Hitler’s would-be assassins were, themselves, Nazi war criminals. Why celebrate them?
On 20 July, Germany’s political elite recalls the day in 1944 when Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg exploded a…
The dumbing down of the Reith Lectures
It’s been a heavyweight week on Radio 4 with the start of the annual series of Reith Lectures and a…
Were all those young lives lost at Normandy in vain?
I’m back in New York and digesting the five glorious days spent in Normandy. What was the fighting all about,…
In praise of the Wehrmacht
Omaha Beach, Normandy I am standing in a German cement bunker having walked through a large gaping hole caused by…
Andrew Roberts’s guide to Churchill on screen
Gary Oldman has joined a long list of actors who have portrayed Winston Churchill — no fewer than 35 of…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
A chance to see the Moomins’ creator for the genius she really was: Tove Janssons reviewed
Tove Jansson, according to her niece’s husband, was a squirt in size and could rarely be persuaded to eat, preferring…
Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed
The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…
Don’t believe the sales figures – DVDs are thriving
According to the accountants’ ledgers, DVDs are dying. Sales of those shiny discs, along with their shinier sibling the Blu-ray,…
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat
Lord Woolton put it best: ‘Few people have succeeded in obtaining such a public demand for their promotion as the…
Of his time
Great novelists come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they all share is a status of half-belonging. If…
The evil that men do
The first thing to say about Claudio Magris’s new novel is that it is, in an important sense, unreadable. There…
Balkan brass
When brass instruments with button-operated valves were introduced in the second half of the 19th century, music-making changed. Once requiring…
Visual, visceral, confusing
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has already been described as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘a glorious, breathtakingly vivid triumph’, but we need to…
Grain of truth
We routinely feel emotional about materials — often subliminally. Which is why new substances and techniques for manufacturing have provoked…
The kindest man in the Bordeaux wine business
There was a moment during the war when De Gaulle was being more than usually impossible. Roosevelt, furious, asked Churchill…
What is a serious film festival doing opening with Hail, Caesar!
What is a serious film festival doing opening with Ethan and Joel Coens’ turkey Hail, Caesar!? James Woodall reports from Berlin
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